The present invention relates to a diagnostic imaging method and apparatus for the anatomical region of the pelvic floor.
Diseases involving the pelvic floor are highly increasing in western countries due to different reasons. As the years go by a percentage of people between 10 and 41% are expected to have troubles related to urinary incontinence, vaginal and/or rectal prolapses or other diseases involving structures composing the pelvic floor. It is clear that said diseases will have a considerable social, psychological and obviously economic effect.
In the medical field the concept of pelvic floor intended as a single functional unit is established. Various specialists that treat diseases involving the pelvic area, such as urologists, gynaecologists, surgeons and coloproctologists have abandoned the conventional distinction between anterior, middle and posterior compartments. It is become clear that the trouble of each segment of the pelvic floor is always associated to different disease degrees of other systems constituting it. As a consequence during the same operating session it is often necessary to perform combined urologic, gynaecological and rectalcolon corrective/reconstructive operations. It has been proved that the sequential treatment of various troubles of the pelvic floor during the same operating session does not lead to an increase in the mortality and it has the further advantage of reducing the length of time the patient is obliged to stay in hospital and the time for the functional recovery.
Devices for acquiring morpho-functional images having the objective of carrying out medical diagnosis are known, particularly not invasive or little invasive imaging devices such as ultrasound apparati or magnetic resonance apparati.
Different kinds of nuclear magnetic resonance apparati are known. A type of apparatus called “total body” has a magnetic structure defining a cavity housing the patient with such a dimension to house the whole body of the patient or a large part thereof. Therefore these apparati are large and poles generating the magnetic field both of the permanent magnet type and of the resistive or superconductive type, generate magnetic fields having a great intensity. The cost of these apparati is high and their installation is complex since they need rooms that have to be large and above all intended to support their considerable weight.
A second type of apparati so called “dedicated” type comprises magnetic structures of the U-shaped, C-shaped or annular type having such a dimension to be adapted to the examination of some anatomical regions or parts of the patient body and generally they are the head, shoulder or backbone. Generally dedicated apparati are made considering needs as regards dimensions of the cavity defined by the magnetic structure with reference to various parts of the body to be housed in the cavity. Such need often requires these magnetic structures to be combined with structures of the examination table or patient supporting table movably connected to the magnetic structure. This type of apparati has the advantage of requiring magnetic fields having a small intensity and so it allows magnetic structure to be small and not much heavy.
The apparati of the so called “dedicated” type are widely used in the orthopedical and rheumatologic field. The possibility of manufacturing apparati with a smaller size, weight and cost guaranteeing such a magnetic field intensity that diagnostic images are obtained has allows the diffusion and the use of resonance by surgeries and small professional persons even for studying diseases that conventionally are diagnosed on the base of clinical data or by conventional, expensive and bulky apparati, such as radiological apparati.
The spreading of MRI dedicated apparati has allowed to obtain an optimal cost-advantage ratio above all when carrying out muscle skeletal examinations.
After MRI dedicated systems for orthopedy and rheumatology the need to develop MRI systems for carrying out morphofunctional analyses has developed as regards other diseases compromising functional capacities of the patient.
Methods of diagnosis aided by the computer are known, so called CAD computer aided diagnosis, involving the processing of diagnostic images such to highlight shapes and objects in images and to obtain information about the type of the highlighted object.
In order to obtain qualitative and/or quantitative information from images about a predetermined object or about a particular anatomical region, available computers use quite complex algorithms that force the specialist dealing with the treatment of a particular disease to send files relevant to the image or image series to a specialized institute that will process them then providing desired data that will allow the specialist to go on in treating the disease.
This system will lead to an increase of costs and time for treating the patient considerably postponing the starting of the therapy since it involves an exchange of information between the personnel assigned to acquiring images, personnel assigned to processing images and the doctor evaluating images and data obtained by the processing in order to have a right therapy.
Moreover since the method for conventionally processing images involves the interaction of data provided by the work of different specialized persons, it interferes with the possibility of having files of data and diagnostic images of the same patient upon which the processing of data recently acquired can be based.
A further drawback is that CAD-based processing systems work on static images and so are not useful for the dynamic functional in-depth study of those diseases involving an anatomical region in the dynamic condition i.e. they do not allow to analyse and to compare the body part under examination directly during its operation with filed data and images.